The semi-weekly fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1886-1887, 1887-11-11
SELECT SIFTINGS.

Kentucky has banana fiend, who re-
Gently ate thirty-four bananas in one
hour.
Sumatra has flower which grows to
nine feet in circumference and weighs
fifteen pounds.
Herodotus, the first Greek historian.
and father of history, lived, according
TO Cicero, about $50.
The eggs of single sturgeon, counted
by Frank Buckland, numbered 921 500.
and weighed forty-fve pounds.
The first historical mention of soap oc-
ours in Pliny and Galen, the former
attributing its invention to the Gduls.
In the superstition of sailor mea there
is a connection between white horses and
preachers. Both ere believed to bring
bad luck to the vessel carving them.
LOUIS Bayuen, pima man VINO o1eo
at Worcester, Mass the other day, had
his sense of touch so developed that he
could tell the denomination of a bank
note by feeling it, and in wedding large
garden be could always distinguish a
young vegetable plant from "a weed
Next year QSSS) will be:a peculiar one
in this respect: That the last three nu
merals which compose it will be the same
figures, Il circumstance which can only
occur once in century, or, more strictly
speaking, once in every III years, as it
will be III years before another - three
Of a kind 1899 will be reached.
There is a colored man IN a New York
hospital who has patch of light colored
skin on his back. 1t was grated there
he having lost the original cuticle by
falling against a roller in a shoe factory.
The pieces were taken from the arms of
a young medical student. At first the
transplanted skin remained white, but it
is said to be slowly turning black.
An animal with the head and tail of an
alligator. and the back and claws of a
tortoise, is on exhibition at the store Of
George Hulse, a Liverpool England i'm
porter of turtles. 1t is called an alligator
tortoise, and was captured by an Eng
lish sailor in the swamps near New Or
leans The English naturalists have
never seen anything like it before, and
are trying to buy it for a public museum.
1t Pays to Think.
A striking instance of the extent to
which labor saving machinery is carried
nowadays, says the Industrial .0urnaL is
shown in the tin can industry. Every
body knows that tin cans are manufac-
OA1O
chimes used in the process soldiers the
longitudinal seams of the cans at the
rate of fifty minute, the cans rushing
along in continuous stream. Now, of
course, a drop or two of solder is left on
the can. The drop on the outside can
be easily cleaned away, but it is not so
easy to secure the drop left on the inside.
1t wouldn't do, of course. to retard the
speed of the work-better waste the
drop, it is only a trifle, anyhow, and to
ninety-men in a one hundred it would not
seem worth a minutes attention. The
hundredth man worked for a firm using
one of these machines, and he set about
! devising an ingenious arrangement for
wiping the inside of the can, thereby
saving that drop of solder and leaving
none to come in contact with the con-
tents of the can. He was encouraged by
his employers to patent his invention, die
so, and has already received several
thousand dollars in royalties for its use.
As the machine soldiers 90, 900 cans day,
the solder saved by his invention
amounted to SO day. Itpays to think
as you work.
The barharic idea of piercing the lobe